Canterbury is a walking city in the plainest sense — the medieval centre is barely ten minutes across on foot, and almost nobody who visits drives inside the walls. But the walking that makes Canterbury worth a week rather than a day starts at the edge of that centre: a river running out through water meadows to the marshes, one of the largest ancient woodlands in England on the northern side, the chalk of the Kent Downs to the south, and the sea an hour away on foot along an old railway.
This guide works outwards, from the circuit you can do before breakfast to the day walks that need a bus home. Distances are from the cathedral.
Canterbury’s walls follow the line of the Roman defences of Durovernum Cantiacorum, and around half the circuit survives, much of it walkable along the top. The eastern stretch, from Burgate round past the bus station to St George’s, is the best preserved and gives you a view down into the city on one side and the ring road on the other — which is not romantic, but is genuinely instructive about how the city grew.
The Dane John Gardens sit inside the southern wall, built around a mound that was a Roman cemetery, then an eleventh-century motte, and finally a civic garden with a monument on top. Climbing it takes two minutes and gives you the cathedral above the rooftops. See our Dane John page.
A full walls-and-centre circuit is about three kilometres and takes an hour with stops.
The Westgate Towers are the largest surviving city gate in England and the only one of Canterbury’s gates to survive; you can climb them for a view straight down the high street. Beyond them, Westgate Gardens run along the Great Stour — willows, a vast oriental plane tree, and the river split into channels. It is the prettiest stretch of the city and the natural place to sit.
From here the riverside path continues west along the Stour towards Toddler’s Cove and out of the city. It is flat, shaded and popular.
Follow the Stour north-east out of the city and in about five kilometres you reach Fordwich, which claims to be the smallest town in England — it has a tiny town hall, a good pub and, for centuries, the port that served Canterbury before the river silted. It is a two-hour round trip on the flat and one of the most satisfying short walks in Kent.
Continue past Fordwich, or drive the eight kilometres, and the river opens into Stodmarsh — reedbeds, lagoons, hides and one of the best wetland bird sites in the south-east. Marsh harriers, bitterns and bearded tits are the specialities. Flat, boardwalked in places and free.
Grove Ferry, at the far end, has a picnic site, a car park and a pub, which makes a linear walk from Fordwich to Grove Ferry a natural half-day with a bus or a river trip back.
Four and a half kilometres north, Blean is one of the largest surviving areas of ancient broadleaf woodland in England, and the RSPB reserve within it has waymarked trails from a couple of kilometres up to about ten. It is exceptional in spring for bluebells and nightingales, and it is where Canterbury goes to walk the dog. The heath fritillary butterfly, one of Britain’s rarest, is managed for here.
A practical note from regular users: the reserve is large and quiet, and some walkers prefer the busier central trails to the outlying paths if walking alone.
The old Canterbury and Whitstable Railway — the first regular passenger steam railway in the world, opened in 1830 — has become a walking and cycling route running roughly eleven kilometres from the city to the coast at Whitstable, through Blean Woods for much of its length. Walk it one way in three hours and come back on the bus, which is what most people do, and reward yourself with oysters at the far end.
The long-distance path passes just south of Canterbury and the city is on the Pilgrims’ Way to the cathedral — the route Chaucer’s pilgrims were notionally travelling. Walking a section of it in either direction is straightforward: west towards Chartham and Chilham, east towards Patrixbourne and Barham, with buses to get back.
Fifteen kilometres south-west near the village of Wye, the chalk escarpment drops away in a series of dry valleys, the most dramatic of which is the Devil’s Kneading Trough — a steep coombe with a view across the Weald to the South Downs on a clear day. The Wye Downs national nature reserve is chalk grassland with orchids in June, and the Wye Crown, cut into the hillside by students in 1902, sits above the village. This is the best hill walking in east Kent, and it is under half an hour’s drive.
Fourteen kilometres north-east, where the twin towers of a ruined Norman church stand on the cliff inside the walls of a Roman fort at the eastern end of the Wantsum Channel. The walk west along the sea wall towards Herne Bay, or east onto the marshes, is bracing, level and unlike anywhere else in Kent. It is free, open at all times, and reachable by bus from the city.
The coast path along the north Kent shore links Whitstable, Tankerton, Hampton and Herne Bay, all within eleven kilometres of the city and all connected by bus. The Street at Whitstable, a shingle spit that appears at low tide and lets you walk out to sea, is worth timing a walk around.
Getting to the trailheads. Canterbury’s bus network reaches Whitstable, Herne Bay, Reculver, Fordwich and the Downs villages, which makes linear walks easy. Both railway stations are within ten minutes of the centre.
Parking. Do not drive into the middle. The park and ride sites at Wincheap, New Dover Road and Sturry Road are cheap, frequent and designed for exactly this. Our getting here page has the arrival detail for the city.
Underfoot. The Kent clay in Blean and along the Stour is heavy after rain; the chalk on the Downs drains fast but is slippery on the steep sections.
Seasons. Bluebells in Blean in late April; orchids on the Wye Downs in June; the marshes at Stodmarsh at their best for birds in winter.
Canterbury is the destination rather than a stop, and two long-distance routes end here. The North Downs Way runs 246 kilometres from Farnham in Surrey along the chalk to Dover, with a branch that comes into Canterbury — the last stretch, over the Downs from Chilham and Chartham, is the one Chaucer’s pilgrims would recognise in outline. The Via Francigena, the medieval road from Canterbury to Rome, starts at the cathedral and leaves the city southwards towards Dover.
You do not need to walk any of it in full to get something out of it. Taking the train to Chilham and walking the twelve kilometres back into Canterbury along the Downs, arriving with the cathedral in view ahead of you, is one of the best half-days in Kent and needs nothing more than a return ticket.
Around half the circuit survives and much of it is walkable, with the eastern section from Burgate to St George’s the best preserved.
About eleven kilometres on the Crab and Winkle Way, three hours one way, with frequent buses back.
The Wye Downs and the Devil’s Kneading Trough for hills and views; Stodmarsh for wetland and birds; Blean for woodland.
Yes — the Great Stour through Westgate Gardens and out towards Fordwich, flat and shaded the whole way.
Almost all of them. Blean is the local dog-walking wood; keep dogs under control at Stodmarsh during the bird breeding season.